Swimming like a frog

Chapter One of What Me and Jude Did While Everyone Else Was At School continues:

Tuesday 8 October

I am getting much better at breaststroke, so is Jude. Breaststroke is swimming like a frog. Sometimes I start to sink, so I stand up, but I hardly did that at all today. When we go swimming there are not many other people at the pool, but if you swim for a long time, which we did today, a swimming class arrives, and they all line up beside the pool and dive in together. It’s very impressive. I don’t know how to dive, I wonder if it makes water go up your nose.

We went to the library after swimming, and borrowed some more books. Jude got five books! I just got two. I got a book about dolphins and whales and sea creatures, and a book called Charlie and the Glass Elevator, which is the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I haven’t read the first book, but I’ve seen the film, so I understand what happens in the story.

When we got home we went down the lane to pick blackberries from the hedgerows. This is fun because you get pink fingers. It is a careful business, you need to choose the ones which are shiny and dark purple, avoid the red and green ones, which aren’t ripe yet, also avoid the ones which look like they have been half eaten by wasps or birds or spiders.

For cookery I made apple and blackberry pie, and Jude made oat biscuits. We worked at the table together. Then we made beans on toast for dinner. Jude stirred the beans while I put the margarine on the toast, and Mum laid the table. If you don’t stir beans, they stick to the bottom of the saucepan. We have a dark blue cooker and a bright orange kitchen.

Wednesday 9 October

In science we learned that energy is everywhere, and we learned about the energy in our bodies, in our blood and in our brains and things.

I like to daydream that we are making important scientific breakthroughs about the Sun, and that we have discovered that actually the Earth is slowly moving away from the Sun! Or that there are actually two Suns! And nobody ever noticed because they are never in the sky at the same time.

In the afternoon we did sewing! Mum showed us how to do straight stitch and satin stitch, and we practised them on little pieces of fabric. When I’m sewing I pretend I am someone from Little house on the prairie, mending clothes for someone. With satin stitch I sewed a circle in green, pink, blue and yellow on a white and green striped piece of fabric, and Jude sewed hers on a dark blue piece of corduroy.

Thursday 10 October

In the morning we usually get up early, have breakfast and then I do the washing up, Jude walks our dog, Dmitri, and Mum sweeps the floors. We do those jobs as quickly as we can so that they’re all done in time for us to watch Bewitched before lessons start.

Last time I did maths I thought I nearly understood mean, median and mode, but they were different today than last time I saw them. Median is the only one I can remember. At least I’m not doing long division, which is what Jude was studying this morning.